Legacy of a South Korean Ferry Sinking
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/world/asia/legacy-of-south-korea-sewol-ferry-sinking.html Version 0 of 1. JEJU, South Korea — At the windy port here on South Korea’s most famous resort island, stevedores prepared a ferry for its four-and-a-half-hour journey to Mokpo in the country’s southwest, chains clanking as they lashed trucks to the damp cargo deck. As truck drivers hauling cows, radishes and aluminum window frames inched their way to the front of the line, they did something they had never done before last year: They handed in paperwork certifying the weight of their cargo. That simple safety step — an attempt to avoid dangerous overloading — is one of a host of regulatory changes made since the sinking of the Sewol ferry, one of South Korea’s most traumatic peacetime disasters. A year ago this week, the accident claimed the lives of more than 300 passengers, most of them teenagers on a school trip to Jeju. “In the past, we didn’t weigh trucks and we didn’t know how much ships were carrying in cargo,” said Oh Myung-o, an inspector in Jeju who is back on the job while he and four other inspectors from the island stand trial for failing to stop routine overloading. “We did not suspect the Sewol would do foul play with its ballast water. We were wrong.” As prosecutors later discovered, the Sewol was carrying twice its legal limit of cargo on its final voyage, having dumped most of the ballast water that would have helped stabilize it. The ferry operators got away with it because inspectors had limited themselves to monitoring many ships from shore; so long as vessels did not sit too low in the water, the inspectors raised no questions. The overloading helped doom the ferry when it made a sharp turn in dangerous currents. But it was just one of numerous regulatory sins so serious that the country’s president, Park Geun-hye, vowed to untangle long-tolerated collusive ties with industry that many believe were at the heart of the tragedy. One year later, many safety experts and those working in the shipping industry say important changes have been made, including the passage of a law to ban government officials from taking expensive gifts and another to crack down on business owners whose companies are involved in major disasters. The second law was passed after prosecutors alleged that members of the flamboyant family they say owned the Sewol had illegally siphoned funds from the ferry company, forcing its managers to overload ferries and scrimp on safety measures. But government critics remain bitter, convinced Ms. Park’s administration is more interested in moving past the tragedy that has threatened to become her biggest legacy than in undertaking a serious investigation of the disaster and bungled rescue. They cite recent safety lapses on ships as evidence of continued wrongdoing. Last weekend, thousands of people, including 70 of the Sewol victims’ parents who shaved their heads in protest, marched in downtown Seoul to demand that a new investigation be opened. In what some saw as an effort to halt the criticism, Ms. Park — whose approval ratings have never recovered after the sinking — announced on Monday that her government would consider the costly task of raising the Sewol. The bodies of nine passengers — four of them high school students — have never been found. “For one year, we have been praying and begging to them to help find our loved ones,” said Lee Keum-hui, the mother of a teenager whose body is still missing. “But nothing has changed for us.” Many of the grieving parents believe the government has tried to refocus anger on the family who prosecutors say owned the Sewol. (The patriarch died while on the run under circumstances that have yet to be fully explained.) South Korea has long been known for its high tolerance of corruption in service of stoking its economy. Collusive ties between regulators and businesses have been blamed for building collapses, as well as rising fears about the country’s nuclear power industry. In an attempt to address such corruption in the shipping industry, the government revised laws in recent months to stipulate harsher financial penalties and longer prison terms for ferry crews and companies that violate safety rules. Dozens of regulators, crew members, ship inspectors and officials with ferry and loading companies have been convicted or face trial for their roles in the Sewol disaster. “After the Sewol, I was ashamed to tell people that I worked on a ferry,” said Kim Young-jin, the captain of the Hanil Blue Narae, a car ferry that sails between Jeju and Wando, another island off the country’s southern coast. “We now pay more attention to safety.” Last month, the government announced a $27 billion safety plan that called for hiring more rescuers and safety supervisors, deploying bigger rescue ships and helicopters, and financing more training for ferry crews. (The first coast guard rescue boats arriving at the Sewol disaster had inadequate equipment and did little more than watch the ship slowly disappear beneath the waves as passengers trapped inside called for help through the windows.) But Park Jun-do, of the civic group People’s Solidarity for Social Progress, said the government’s safety measures were little more than “window-dressing” and fell far short of addressing deeply rooted corruption that is still undermining safety. Nearly eight months after the Sewol disaster, a South Korean trawler sank off eastern Russia in stormy weather, with 53 sailors presumed dead. The police later discovered that the ship’s captain was not on board, though its log said he was, and the sailor in charge was not qualified for the job. In January, three months after the government required all trucks to weigh themselves at government-licensed measuring stations, JTBC, a local cable channel, discovered that some drivers loaded extra cargo after leaving the stations. As a result, the government is now conducting random inspections. And in an attempt to eradicate dangerous conflicts of interest, the government has said it would transfer pier-side inspectors like Mr. Oh from the Korea Shipping Association, which is financed by shipping companies, to a government-funded agency. But just last month, government auditors revealed that two officials from that agency had approved the illegal remodeling of two ships. (One of the many problems found with the Sewol, according to prosecutors, was that regulators allowed the ferry owners to add passenger berths to improve earnings, changes that made the ship top-heavy and vulnerable to tilting.) Kim Chul-soo, the captain of the 15,000-ton Sea Star Cruise ferry recently docked at Jeju, cited a similar lack of responsibility among mariners as a continuing safety hazard. An estimated 75 percent of ferry crew members nationwide work on temporary contracts — as many did aboard the Sewol, including the captain, who is serving a 36-year prison term for abandoning ship with other crew members without trying to evacuate passengers trapped as the ship slipped into the Yellow Sea. “What we need most urgently, more than harsher punishments or retiring older ships,” Mr. Kim said, “is sailors who are proud of what they do and feel motivated and responsible.” |